ECMS ready to welcome visitors at open house
By BRENDA SOMMER bsommer@leader-news.com

If curiosity is getting the better of you, Sunday's your chance to poke around the new El Campo Middle School.

Invitations to the open house and a Masonic cornerstone dedication ceremony were sent out by El Campo ISD late last week.

The fully-enclosed, $17.6-million campus on FM 2765 opened for its first day of classes Feb. 11, but district officials wanted to give students and staff time to get used to the large facility before having "company."

Superintendent Mark Pool said the Masonic dedication ceremony has been postponed.

He said Masons - members of an international fraternal organization that includes an El Campo lodge - "have historically supported Texas' public schools."

"They do the cornerstones for the buildings, a ceremony called 'leveling the cornerstone,'" Pool Lakes said. "Someone from the state level comes in and does that."

However, after the open house/dedication ceremony invitations were printed, Pool said local Masonic officials found out the cornerstone ceremony could not be held on a Sunday.

"We're going to have to reschedule that," Pool said. "The invitations are already in the mail."

Nonetheless, the open house at the new El Campo Middle School will begin at 1:30, and likely last a few hours, Pool said. The public is encouraged to attend the event.

The new middle school and a practice gym at the high school - the result of a $19.9 million bond package approved in 2005 - both were built behind schedule. The initial delay was due to citizens who sued the school in an attempt to overturn the close election. That delay put the project into a time of wet weather which further delayed construction. Dirt work at the school site began in late 2005.

The initial completion date was to have been Dec. 15, 2007, but was pushed back repeatedly due to unusually rainy weather in January and February 2007 and again in June and July of that same year, and also because of a shortage of brick masons.